THE MAID OF FRANCE RIDES BY
Compiegne, Where Joan of Arc Fought Her Last
Battle, Celebrates Her Fifth Centenary
BY INEZ BUFFINGTON RYAN
AUTHOR OF "THE LAND OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,"
IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
"
AVE no other thought than to
strike!"
Five centuries ago the voice of
an I8-year-old girl rang out in fierce com
mand above the clash and clamor of battle
on the River Oise. Joan of Arc, the Maid
of France, was trying desperately to rally
her retreating men.
"Make haste !" they shouted.
"Get back
to town, or we are lost !"
Yet still she cried, "Be silent! It rests
with you to defeat them. Strike again!"
A dominant figure she was, in shining
armor and scarlet huque, a surcoat broid
ered in gold, conspicuous on her plung
ing horse.
Hence enemy English and
Burgundians, now strongly reinforced,
swarmed thick about the girl commander.
Could they capture this French witch?
Overwhelmed by a new onslaught, the
smaller French force, dragging Joan with
them, fell back to the bridge entrance.
Here the crush was tremendous, the
French trying to cut their way across, the
English and Burgundians crowding in
hotly. The commander of the town, anx
iously watching from the wall and fearful
lest the enemy sweep forward through the
Water Gate, raised the drawbridge. So
Joan, with those near her fighting in the
rear guard, was cut off to her doom.
DEFEAT, MOCKERY, AND DEATH
In a frenzied onrush the enemy forced
the French down the embankment into the
meadows and pulled them from their
horses.
A burly archer fighting with
troops allied with Burgundy's seized Joan
by the coat and dragged her to the ground.
The Witch caught at last! What a prize
for Burgundy !
Though it all happened so long ago, on
May 23, 1430, Compiegne has never for
gotten that day; for Joan fought her last
battle for king and country in the meadows
just across the river from this old town,
52 miles north of Paris. Now remained
for her a year and seven days of imprison
ment, sale to the English, mockery, anxi-
ety, mental torture, and finally condemna
tion and agonizing death by fire.
Compiegne celebrated the fifth cente
nary of the Maid's arrival and her last day
in the field with an elaborate pageant. It
evoked, with historical accuracy, the scenes
and events, the costumes and arms, of
Joan's day. Out of medieval twilight rode
Charles VII and his courtiers, the Maid
and her comrades at arms, knights and
horses in glittering panoply of war-truly
a living page of history, a moving, unfor
gettable spectacle.
THE MAID RIDES FORTH
As the bell in the old belfry pealed out,
the ceremonies began. First the Maid her
self rode forth-a proud, erect figure in
shining armor. This was all as it should
be, for Joan's contemporaries describe her
as a handsome, well-built girl, with dark
hair cut short like a soldier's. Her face
was bright and smiling, her personality
gracious; she had no fear of pain, fatigue,
or physical risk.
Her armor-we know she was "pas
sionately fond of beautiful armor"-was
what she used to call "white" armor, of un
browned steel highly polished. Her first
suit of it had been made the year before
in Tours, famous for its armorers, when
she went there to equip herself to take the
field for the Dauphin. At Tours, too, a
Scot made her a banner and a pennant,
the one broidered with the King of Heaven
holding an orb, the other with the Annun
ciation, with an angel bearing a lily. From
Tours also she sent to another city for a
sword bearing five crosses. Could it, his
torians ask, have belonged to Charles Mar
tel himself-the very one with which "The
Hammer," in 732, drove from France an
other invading enemy ?
Joan's horse, in its gorgeous trappings,
also reminds us that she was ever a lover
of spirited war steeds and liked to have
them splendidly caparisoned.
Behind the resplendent figure of the
Maid came pages, halberdiers, and her co-